


Sleeping Through The Aftershocks

by Yeomanrand



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Domestic, Domestic (kinda), Gen, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5840989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha has trusted people before, in a crisis. She's even learning to let it linger a bit in between crises, with some of the Avengers. But she doesn't kid herself that people will ever trust her. Especially now, with the horrors lurking within HYDRA and SHIELD and her own past newly exposed. </p><p>So what the hell does she think she's doing, sneaking back to Sam's apartment in the aftermath of the battle over the Potomac?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping Through The Aftershocks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mlraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven/gifts).



Natasha Romanova sat on the counter in Sam Wilson's kitchen, glass of orange juice in her hand, and listened to the key in the lock. Three exits she could use without letting him know she'd been here. Two that would leave evidence. One that would be _very_ obvious. Especially given that she'd commandeered a pair of Sam's sweats and a plain blue tee from his closet. She'd considered the Air Force Academy shirt; she could see it wouldn't fit him anymore but she'd look good in it. Only thing was, she wasn't trying to start a fight. Or dredge up any more old memories.

She thought they'd all had enough of those over the last week or so.

She sipped the orange juice and waited for him to close the door and the blinds behind him.

"Hey, flyboy," she said; lips pulled upward in not-quite a smile. His shoulders dropped a little, along with his head briefly, and then he turned to face her. She shook her head. "Don't give me that kicked puppy look, Wilson, you knew I was sitting here."

"Yeah," he said, with a little half-smile. "Through no particular skill of my own, but yeah."

He flipped on the light in the kitchen; she polished off the glass in her hand and set it in the sink.

"How's our boy?"

"Good," he said, opening the refrigerator and reaching in; she could see the bruises from his own rough landing at his neck and below the sleeve of his own shirt, mottled almost black beneath the warm brown-ochre of his skin. "Really? You had to drink it all?"

She widened her eyes, just a touch, and gave a little shrug and moue. He rolled his eyes and gave her a pained look.

"I'll buy you more," she said, drawing one stockinged foot up to the counter so she could rest her hands and chin on her knee. "May I have details?"

He pulled the milk out and set it on the counter, reaching up into the open cupboard for a glass.

"He was half-drowned, shot three times in the back, twice in the shoulder, and winged in the neck, and he looked like he'd gone ten rounds with Ali — but he woke up. Seemed mostly like his old self, since the first thing he said was 'on your left.' The docs don't want to let him out until the morning. I would have stayed, but Rogers insisted I go home and get some sleep. And then a very irritated colonel wearing very impressive dress blues came in and _told_ me I was coming home if he had to fly me here himself."

"Colonel Rhodes. War Machine," she said, with a little smile. "He should have let Steve talk you into coming himself; he can be very persuasive, when he wants."

"I heard him do that back at the Triskelion." Sam shook his head. "War Machine. My life has become very strange since you two dropped by."

"Says the man who flew on metal feathers. No lingering injury or infection?"

"I'm not a doc and I'm not family," Sam said, heaving a sigh, then pouring the last of the milk—about four fingers—into his cup and taking a long swallow. "But the bruises I could see were mending up slowly while I watched."

She allowed herself a moment to admire the line of his throat and shoulder, the bob of his Adam's apple.

"Don't look at me like you want to eat me up, Natasha, we both know I'm not your type."

She laughed outright at that.

"I don't really have a 'type,'" she said, "and it's been an adrenaline-laden few days."

He looked at her for a moment, face in neutral. Set the glass down on the counter with a sharp clunk and moved so he was standing in front of her.

"You can lash out from there in at least three ways that'll push me away," he said, mildly. "And about the same number that'll maim or kill. But you don't want to do either, do you?"

"I'm not going to hurt you, Sam." He's right, though, it would be so, so easy. The suggestive smirk came easy too, the added near-purr in her voice. "Not unless you want me to."

"I know you aren't," he said, holding his hands out to her palms up. "And I know what you're doing."

She raised an eyebrow at him, keeping her hands where they were.

"Flirting not because you're interested, but to keep me back a few paces and off-guard. Psychological defense mechanism, one you've practiced a long time."

She didn't move, pinned through the chest (like her namesake pinned through the thorax in an examining tray) by something in Sam's face, something she knew how to read and barely knew how to believe in, let alone process. Definitely not in someone she'd met a scant few days ago, who wasn't a mark or a target. Forced her lips closed because shock wasn't half as attractive a look as she'd planned.

"Yeah," he said, hands still held out to her. Leaving himself vulnerable despite knowing how dangerous she could be. _Trusting_ her. "You didn't think I spent the _whole_ time I was at the hospital staring at Prince Charming's face, did you? Or reading pathetically out-of-date white people magazines?"

Her eyebrow twitched and her lips pursed; she looked at his hands and back up at his face.

"We all need to know what we need to know," he says. "Especially since people who shoot at either of you seem to end up shooting at me. Come on down off that perch and help me make up the couch."

"You read all that. Everything SHIELD had. And you're still willing to trust me?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I am."

She cautiously took his hands, let him tug her down. The tile was cool under her bare feet; she looked up at him.

"Because I trust you."

"Doesn't matter why," he said, drawing her after him into his slightly cluttered living room. "Give me a sec to get some blankets."

She let go of his hands, surprised to realize she wanted to keep holding on, and watched him walk to the first door down the hallway. He pulled out an armful of linens and tossed her a pillow one-handed. She clutched it for a moment, brow lifting along with the corner of her mouth, and she was sure he could see the mischievous glint in her eyes when he pushed the door shut.

His eyebrows went up, and he grinned at her.

"Later, maybe. Not really one of my fantasies, though." He tossed the blankets onto the couch.

"Thought you weren't my type?" She teased. Grateful, in the moment, for something that felt _normal_. Not for her, or for them, but something she could imagine Clint and Laura doing.

"I'm not," he said, but whatever he was going to finish with was interrupted by a knock on the door.

They both tensed; Sam gestured her back and moved closer. She believed Barnes would go to the hospital first, if he showed at all, but he was the only one she was confident enough to rule out. She had other enemies. 

Sam cracked the blinds and all the tension went out of his back; he pulled the door open.

"Get in here, man," he said, grabbing a fistful of Steve's shirtfront. "Doc said you were down for the night."

Natasha sighed when she saw him; the cut above his eye was mostly healed but he was moving a lot more like a man of his age. She didn't have the heart to joke about it.

Steve shrugged, setting the shield down next to the door. He winced as he straightened up.

"Not the first time I've checked out of a hospital against doctor's orders," he said, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Yeah, but I'm willing to bet you hadn't been _shot_ any of those other times."

"He has a point," she added; Steve slumped against the wall.

"Even with Rhodey there, I didn't feel safe," he said, hand dropping heavily to his side. "I'll understand, Sam, if you don't want to put me up."

Natasha let herself _ache_ for him, for about ten seconds. He had a lot of reasons to hate hospitals.

"You're an idiot, and she's an idiot, and I'm an idiot, and nobody's going anywhere," Sam said, and then rocked on and off the balls of his feet. "Well. You two can share the bed; I'll crash out here."

"Oh, no —" Natasha started, at the same moment Steve said, "Sam, I —" and Sam looked between them.

"I _know_. But I've got one bed and one couch and the mattress may be too soft, Rogers, but you also just got out of the hospital. And we're _all_ nursing injuries and only one of us, as far as I know, gets to heal overnight from falling forty-one stories after being shot in the stomach."

"And?" Natasha prompted, while Steve grimaced.

Sam sighed.

"And I know I'm going to have nightmares, _if_ I can get to sleep. Figure you two probably will, too." He shook his head. "Lots of old traumas coming up for all three of us: Me being dragged out of the sky, the two of you not knowing who you could trust where you thought you were safe, and _especially_ Barnes crawling out of his grave."

Steve looked blankly at him for a moment, then turned his head.

"Nat?"

She actually bit her lips and looked away. Felt, for a moment, very young and fragile in a way she'd never been.

"Barnes is your ghost, Rogers," she said. Truth enough not to be lying to him.

"Given all that," Sam continued, though he was giving her a narrow-eyed look, "and that you've been working together longer, I figure you're less likely to come up fighting each other than fighting me. Or vice-versa."

"Therefore," Steve finished for him, "we get the bed."

Sam nodded, lips pressed together. Like he was keeping a secret in, Natasha thought. But a man who was willing to fly couldn't be afraid to fall.

Oh. His wingman. Riley.

Obviously.

"No," she said. "Unless _you've_ got a touch trigger, flyboy, which I know you don't, the bed's big enough for three."

Both men stared at her; Steve's expression wavering between exhausted incomprehension and gratitude, Sam's still thin-lipped and puzzled. But he got there first, and nodded.

"Okay," he said, raising his hands in a gesture that was less surrender than acknowledgment. "Okay. Anybody need anything before we try and sack out?"

Steve looked at him, a little sheepishly.

"I could eat," he said.

"Not outta my fridge," Sam fired back. "You two cleaned me out, and I haven't had a chance to go shopping. For take-out we've got a 24-hour Chinese and Donut place, or pizza."

Natasha shrugged; either was good with her. Steve gave Sam a suspicious look.

"What?" Sam demanded. "Oh. Oh, you think I can't give you a slice as good as you can get in New York?"

Steve, despite his exhaustion, folded his arms across his chest. Natasha curled up in the corner of the couch and rested her head on her bicep, smiling a private little smile. Her smile broadened, slightly, when she realized they were about to order a pie from every place still delivering. That should be enough to keep the three of them satisfied, she and Steve in particular, until breakfast.

She let herself drift; not sleeping, but not needing to participate in what was turning into a rather spirited debate. She didn't need a crystal ball to know the doorbell would wake her when pizza arrived, they'd eat, and she'd shuffle the captain and the flyboy off to bed. To _sleep_. Rogers wanted Barnes, and Wilson wasn't over Riley, and she just wasn't interested.

There would be a lot to deal with, in the morning and going forward, little ripples coming back from the big waves of the day in ways they couldn't predict. For now, though, and in this company, she was content.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my betas, shinychimera and bushy-barnes, and to mlraven for the delightful prompt.


End file.
